A few words in support of WSDP.
On Dec. 19, 1980, history teacher Scott Beaman noticed me in the Plymouth Salem library, and asked what I was doing. My answer was, “nothing.”
In fact, “nothing” was my outlook in life. High school Junior: unmotivated, mediocre grades, no athlete or musician or artisan of any kind. Just one of hundreds upon hundreds at PCEP in that category.
Mr. Beaman (you can't call him anything but “Mr. Beaman”) looked at me for a moment and replied, “Follow me.” He left me in the WSDP general manager's office with Jeffrey Cardinal, John Seidelman, and Kathy Allen — all faculty members with formal duties at the radio station. I don't know what Mr. Beaman saw in me, other than a b-s'er, and perhaps that fits for the broadcasting profession. But they handed me a long roll of yellow UPI wire copy and told me to edit it and read it for an audition.
The next school year I was WSDP's news director. The year after that, I was working professionally in news radio, and 30 years later, I am a television news anchor in Florida.
I still have that UPI wire copy, now faded to a pale brown, still hastily marked up with my almost-juvenile pencil scrawls. A reminder that a high school radio station that some consider an extravagance, was absolutely vital to providing me a direction, a career, a life.
All of us who support WSDP recognize school board members have tough choices to make. None of us believe you would blithely cut funds for this program. But as you consider the difficult alternatives in front of you, please keep in mind the fact that WSDP has enormous practical value, that sometimes can only be measured in the lives of people like me — proof that you can make something out of nothing.
David Snyder
WSDP ‘82
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